this is the difference between the counter and the actual number of messages, some 123000 messages are not counted there...

The "Total Messagss Posted" number reflects the number of posts currently in the system, while the Message ID number lists the actual total number of posts since the forum went live.

The 123,000 missing posts include at least 25,000 from Crowley alone, knott to mention the work (spanning more than a decade) of a certain thread and post-deleting troll. Then you have entire threads that were deleted by admin (some with high post counts), such as the original boob thread (RIP).